Thursday, April 12, 2007

Presto Pasta - For me to know and tofu to find out.

I bought the coolest book a couple of weeks ago - Tofu 1-2-3 by Maribeth Abrams. There are a lot of recipes I am anxious to try out, but I started with a pasta for this weeks Presto Pasta hosted by Ruth at Once Upon A Feast.

I picked this recipe for two reasons: One, the tofu is hidden in the sauce which is neat, and two, finally I could use the nutritional yeast flakes I bought in Canmore.

I was a bit surprised about the lack of seasoning in the sauce, so I've made some changes. It's really really good - you'd never know there was tofu in there unless the cook told you. It's also fast - by the time the pasta has cooked your sauce is ready to go.


Tomato and "Cheese" Pasta

adapted from Tofu 1-2-3.

1 1/2 cups tomato sauce
1 tsp dried basil
1 tsp dried oregano
1/4 to 1/2 tsp hot pepper flakes
1 tsp dried onion
1/2 tsp salt
1 package soft silken tofu drained
5 tb nutritional yeast flakes
2 tb sweet white miso
2 tb lemon juice
1 lb pasta, cooked according to the package directions.

Mix together the tomato sauce thru salt. When the pasta is cooked, drain and return to the pot. Add in the tomato sauce mixture and heat gently. Meanwhile mix together the tofu, yeast flakes, miso and lemon juice in a blender or with a hand blender. Add the tofu sauce to the pot and heat until warm. Season with salt and pepper if needed.

The day after I made this I gave the recipe to a lady who works in my building. She's been asking me to give her some healthy vegetarian recipes to cook at home. I also gave her some miso and yeast flakes so all she would need to buy would be the tofu, pasta and tomato sauce. She came to see me a few days later and raved about how good the sauce was. I was very happy she'd tried it; I had expected the miso, tofu and yeast flakes to scare her off. But then she said "Of course I made a few changes. I didn't buy tofu, so I left that out. I also didn't use the miso or the nutritional yeast. But other than that I followed the recipe exactly!"

Ah, what are you gonna do!

8 comments:

Lis said...

hahahaha! I love the reviews on allrecipes.com for that exact reason - doesn't matter if they give the recipe a 5 star or a 1 star if they've changed it so much that it's not even recognizable any more. teee!

Sara said...

I know! It's disappointing though. I know she would have liked it.

Ruth Daniels said...

Great post - I'm still smiling and I promise to try the dish -with all the ingredients once I get to Halifax - just a couple of weeks to go!

Thanks for the Presto Pasta Night entry - I'm sure others will use all the ingredients ;-)

MyKitchenInHalfCups said...

That is too funny...about as funny as my changing the red velvet into a spice cake. Some things are what they are! Oh, well I'm always changing things around. I sure would be using the tofu and miso and yeast! That's the good stuff, come on...

Peabody said...

Yeah, Canmore... Go Eagles.
If only I could convince my husband that tofu comes from a cow!

Sara said...

Ruth - Thanks, and thank you for Presto Pasta!

Tanna - Change is always good, but sometimes the original recipe is good too!

Peabody - Ah, he'd never know it's in this one.

Emmy said...

That sounds like a yummy sauce. I don't think I have any miso left. Time for me to get some more.

Oh and I can totally relate to people wanting a recipe and then changing it up...I usually get people who change it up so much, it's not even close to being the same recipe...then they complain it was awful...I always think to myself "well duh! You didn't even make the recipe I gave you."

Anonymous said...

this looks delicious - tofu really can be creamy and scrumptious!